The Financial Times questioned economists for its annual publication of economic forecasts: “With unemployment at a 40-year low, how much of a pay rise will British workers get in 2018?” (See here). PRIME economists responded thus:

The fall in real wages while employment has fallen and employment has risen is a consequence of sustained hyper-globalisation policy in which much of the labour force is now obliged to compete in more global labour markets. Brexit will worsen this in due course. The average annual increase in nominal total pay has remained remarkably stable over the last 3 years, averaging 2.4 per cent, and most months between 2 to 3 per cent, unchanging as unemployment has fallen. Our prediction is an annual rise of 2.6 per cent, meaning a zero increase in real wages.